JAMBOREE OF 31 NATIONS

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 4, 28 September 1937, Page 14

JAMBOREE OF 31 NATIONS

This is wTitten by the Chief Scout, I^ord Baden-Powell in ,the -Daily Telegraph Jamboree Suppiement:— - ' ' Eight' ships have each taken a thouisand British Scouts to the . Jamboree in Hoiland. From the United States, another thousand have jcrossed the Atlantie to join their brother Scouts from other countries — 32 in t all— in , the world 's great jamboree. Although this is one of;the largest flotillas of youth the modern world nas seen, it i's not the first' expeditiOn of its •kind, for in A.D. 1212 a widespread mo'vemeut originated in France and Germany to make a crusade to over'come the Saraccns and uphold Christianity where hve crusades by their fathers had failed. Some 37,000 boys and girls, inspired by the spirit of adventure in' a gockl cause, lef t their homcs to • make their way to Palestine along the shores bf the Mediterranean. But it was a.lpng and arduous joufney for, them without any organisation of transporfc and suppliesj and as they wandered southwards hundreds perished by the way from. heat, sickness and hunger, till thtero were only 7000 lef t. • ; In the end only a few hundreds embarked in the seven ' ships „ that wero available. Two of the ships were wrecked and lost with all hands off the' island of St. Peter, whereby the boys : were spared a worse "fate,'.for tho remainiug hve .veseels, instead of making -for Palestine, sailcd- for B'ougie aud Alexandria and there sold their htiman cargoea in tho slave market. •. Thus ended the so-called " Children '« Crusade."